Exploring the sound, music of the 1969 American Indian occupation of Alcatraz

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On Nov. 20, 1969, a gaggle of Indigenous Individuals that referred to as itself Indians of All Tribes took boats within the early morning hours to Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. The 19-month occupation that adopted could be considered one of many biggest acts of political resistance in American Indian historical past.

UC Berkeley Ph.D. ethnomusicology pupil Everardo Reyes’ analysis appears at how sound and music had been used throughout the takeover to seize mass consideration and amplify the Crimson Energy motion, a civil rights motion fashioned by Native American youth within the second half of the twentieth century. And Reyes explores how the occupation of Alcatraz — together with different acts of political resistance — led to large modifications in federal Indian coverage.

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Learn a transcript of Berkeley Voices episode 102: Exploring the sound, music of the 1969 American Indian occupation of Alcatraz.

[Music: “Cornicob” by Blue Dot Sessions]

Narration: On Nov. 20, 1969, a gaggle of Indigenous Individuals that referred to as itself Indians of All Tribes took boats within the early morning hours to Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay.

The federal jail on Alcatraz had been closed for six years, and the 89 protesters aimed to occupy the island, stating that the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie required that unused federal land be given again to Native Individuals.

This was taking place at a time when Native American livelihoods and cultures had been acutely threatened by ongoing termination insurance policies during which the U.S. authorities terminated the standing of greater than 100 tribes, withdrawing assist and providers and seizing tens of millions of acres of Fatherland.

Lots of the protesters had been Bay Space school college students, together with two of the group’s leaders: Richard Oakes, an Akwesasne Mohawk, from San Francisco State College, and LaNada Battle Jack, a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, who was attending UC Berkeley.

Because the activists neared Alcatraz, they bypassed a Coast Guard blockade, which had been arrange after earlier takeover makes an attempt.

The group made it to Alcatraz Island and took it over. The occupation would grow to be one of many biggest acts of political resistance in American Indian historical past.

I’m Anne Brice and that is Berkeley Voices.

As soon as they had been on the island, the occupiers issued a proclamation to President Richard Nixon and the United Nations that stated they might buy the 16 acres of land for $24 in glass beads and purple material, an equal value to what the U.S. authorities paid for Manhattan 300 years earlier than.

Everardo Reyes is a fourth-year Ph.D. pupil in ethnomusicology in Berkeley’s Division of Music.

Everardo Reyes: What finally ends up taking place after they first take it over is there’s simply a lot help from folks throughout the Bay Space. They begin getting mills. They get meals shipped in, and there’s powwow drumming. That is the stuff in my analysis that I’m attempting to uncover now. That they had conferences and budgets. That they had big plans for the island to actually simply grow to be this superb cultural middle.

Narration: Reyes’ analysis appears at how sound and music had been used throughout the takeover to seize mass consideration and amplify the Crimson Energy motion, a civil rights motion fashioned by Native American youth within the second half of the twentieth century. And Reyes explores how the occupation of Alcatraz — together with different acts of political resistance — led to large modifications in federal Indian coverage.

Everardo Reyes: Richard Oakes talks about, in interviews, that the power to play Indigenous Native American music on the island was simply so basic in that first month that they had been there.

And he talks about how they had been enjoying music all night time lengthy across the drum — that it was bringing collectively Native American folks from throughout the USA, but in addition Indigenous folks from Mexico and Canada and South America. So, music is simply so basic in bringing collectively communities on this intertribal connection.

Narration: Because the takeover gained extra consideration and help, President Nixon ordered the Coast Guard to play a job of relative non-interference so long as the occupation remained peaceable. At some factors, there have been greater than 400 Native folks and their supporters on the island.

[Music: “Secret Pocketbook” by Blue Dot Sessions]

The activists on Alcatraz had been reaching and connecting with different Indigenous communities by doing interviews with native and nationwide media, but in addition by broadcasting common studies of the occupation over the radio.

Utilizing borrowed and donated radio tools, the activists arrange a broadcasting station in the principle cell block. The primary stay broadcast of a present they referred to as “Radio Free Alcatraz” was on Dec. 22, 1969, on KPFA, a station within the metropolis of Berkeley on the Pacifica Community. John Trudell, a Santee Sioux from Nebraska, was host of this system.

Everardo Reyes: So, we see the ways in which radio was used to speak concerning the points taking place on Alcatraz and allowed for the Indians of All Tribes to have the ability to management the narrative and counter false data that was given by the USA authorities.

Narration: Every episode of “Radio Free Alcatraz” started with Cree singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie singing, “Now that the Buffalo’s Gone.”

[Music: “Now that that Buffalo’s Gone” by Buffy Sainte-Marie]

John Trudell: Good night, and welcome to Indian Land radio from Alcatraz Island in San Francisco. That is John Trudell on behalf of the Indians of All Tribes welcoming you.]

Within the broadcasts, Trudell typically spoke to protesters on the island about why they had been concerned within the occupation and about their activism for American Indian rights.

Right here he’s in January 1970 speaking to Battle Jack, who, two years earlier, was the primary Native American pupil to be admitted to Berkeley. And in early 1969, she was a frontrunner of the Third World Liberation Entrance strikes on campus, which resulted within the first ethnic research programs to be included within the college’s curricula.

Within the broadcasts, Trudell mentioned methods the federal authorities was violating Native American rights — by limiting searching entry, setting unfair costs on tribal lands, eradicating Native youngsters from native colleges and offering inhumane situations on reservations — to call just some.

Right here’s an episode during which Trudell interviews Burnell Blindman, a Lakota from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and a pupil in social welfare at Berkeley.

And Trudell learn excerpts from books by Native authors and talked about different Indigenous activist teams throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Everardo Reyes: There’s an episode that’s broadcasted on Jan. 13 of 1970. In it, John Trudell is studying one thing referred to as the NARP e-newsletter. It’s a bigger newspaper that’s circulated inside Canada, and it talks about First Nation points.

Narration: Reyes was first impressed to analysis the impression of sound and music of the Alcatraz motion after taking a number of Berkeley lessons — together with one referred to as Indigenous Musics in Surprising Locations — taught by John-Carlos Perea, who final yr was a visiting affiliate professor in Berkeley’s Division of Music. Perea was born in Dulce, New Mexico, and grew up within the Bay Space.

John-Carlos Perea: The position of Indians of All Tribes in bringing in an intertribal American Indian voice to that point interval within the Bay Space — that was central to me rising up, proper? By way of, I’d hear folks speak about Alcatraz. I’d hear folks check with the significance of Alcatraz.

Narration: Perea is chair and affiliate professor of American Indian research within the School of Ethnic Research at San Francisco State College, the place he was an undergraduate pupil within the Nineteen Nineties. He remembers watching footage of the activist-students talking from Alcatraz.

John-Carlos Perea: And being so extremely sensible in displaying what you are able to do, not simply with lecturers, however with tradition, with humor, with artwork, proper? They confirmed a sort of change and continued to point out, for me, a sort of change that I very a lot establish with.

Narration: Perea earned his grasp’s and doctorate in music from UC Berkeley in 2005 and 2009, respectively. He’s a part of the third era of Native-identifying college students within the nation to earn a music analysis Ph.D., alongside together with his spouse, Jessica Bissett (Biss-it) Perea, a professor of Native American research at UC Davis.

John-Carlos Perea: That’s simply the Ph.D., proper? If we went again additional, and we checked out people who each got here earlier than us, who had been working with a number of the of us which might be thought-about founders of the sphere, however who don’t get the credit score in the identical means. For instance, enthusiastic about of us like Francis La Flesche, as only one particular person, then we’ve many extra generations who’ve come earlier than us, when it comes to who’ve participated.

However simply when it comes to institutional historical past, being in a division and pursuing these levels, we perceive, so far as the analysis we’ve achieved to this point, that we’re solely the third era of Native-identified folks with music analysis Ph.D.s.

Narration: Perea says music was central in creating intertribal connections on Alcatraz and in sharing the experiences of American Indians within the U.S.

John-Carlos Perea: Buffy Sainte-Marie singing “Now that the Buffalo’s Gone” and people songs in that point interval for her, they had been historic paperwork. She was writing about what was happening. After which she was getting on stage and singing it. She was enjoying a music, however she was additionally doing the information, proper? I imply, she was actually, you already know, telling folks what was happening.

Narration: Right here’s Sainte-Marie performing “Hey, Little Chicken” for “Radio Free Alcatraz” on Jan. 14, 1970.

Narration: For Grammy Award-winner Perea, who this yr is constant his collaborative work on the Berkeley campus with the Heart for New Music and Audio Applied sciences, says creating and performing music at this time isn’t about leaving the previous behind, however including to it — remembering the tales of those that got here earlier than him and constructing on these tales. Then, sharing the tales with others.

Final spring, Perea and Reyes carried out collectively in Hertz Corridor at Berkeley — Perea on the cedar flute and Reyes on the guitar — as a part of the music division’s 69th Annual Midday Live performance Sequence.

John-Carlos Perea: I’ve an auntie who as soon as stated to me, “Whenever you rise up there, you’re up there with all of the folks previously, even the folks you don’t know who made it potential so that you can be right here and who, in some instances, died so that you can be right here.”

We’ve a accountability to proceed remembering, proceed telling these tales, to proceed studying new tales and to proceed ensuring these grow to be an element … as an accumulative course of. We’ve acquired to attempt to bear in mind as a lot as we will. It’s at all times going to be incomplete, which is why we want one another, as a result of in that sense, these totally different energies coming collectively permit for that better understanding.

Narration: It’s what Reyes goals to do together with his analysis — to recollect the tales of the activists on Alcatraz, and to discover how music, radio and different sounds from the occupation influenced and proceed to affect Indigenous activism and legal guidelines regarding Indian tribal coverage at this time.

The occupation of Alcatraz ended after 19 months on June 11, 1971. Management struggles and interlopers not devoted to the trigger had been a number of the issues that led to the protest’s decline. On the finish, the federal authorities eliminated the final 15 or so protesters nonetheless on the island.

Though the occupiers weren’t granted possession of the island, the protest — which individuals might observe by listening to “Radio Free Alcatraz” — was a catalyst for many years of Indigenous activism and was a turning level towards Native American self-determination.

In 1975, President Nixon ended the termination legal guidelines and applied the Indian Self-Willpower and Training Help Act, giving again tribes’ rights to manipulate themselves. He additionally funded nationwide insurance policies for Indian tribes, which recovered tens of millions of their acres of land.
Lots of the activists concerned within the occupation of Alcatraz went on to take part in different demonstrations and actions, significantly throughout the American Indian Motion.

In 2016, Indigenous protesters stopped the development — a minimum of, for now — of the Dakota Entry Pipeline by way of unceded Native lands on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota.
LaNada Battle Jack has stated the protest was consultant of the spirit of resistance on Alcatraz a long time earlier than.

The battle for Indigenous rights, says Reyes, is much from over. And the occupation of Alcatraz — in his view — isn’t over both.

Everardo Reyes: So, there’s nonetheless plenty of activism taking place round it. And, you already know, there’s a wonderful line between activism and analysis typically, proper? Or, typically there isn’t. And so, it’s onerous to know or onerous to say: Might Alcatraz occur once more? I’m not utterly satisfied that Alcatraz is over, proper? I nonetheless suppose it’s an ongoing occupation.

Narration: Yearly since 1975, Indigenous folks and allies have gone again to Alcatraz Island to take part in a dawn ceremony to honor the reminiscence of the 1969 stand.